NOTE 10

I may here mention that the fashion of compotation described in the text was still occasionally practised in Scotland in the author’s youth.  A company, after having taken leave of their host, often went to finish the evening at the clachan or village, in ‘womb of tavern.’  Their entertainer always accompanied them to take the stirrup-cup, which often occasioned a long and late revel.

The poculum potatorium of the valiant Baron, his blessed Bear, has a prototype at the fine old Castle of Glamis, so rich in memorials of ancient times; it is a massive beaker of silver, double gilt, moulded into the shape of a lion, and holding about an English pint of wine.  The form alludes to the family name of Strathmore, which is Lyon, and, when exhibited, the cup must necessarily be emptied to the Earl’s health.  The author ought perhaps to be ashamed of recording that he has had the honour of swallowing the contents of the Lion; and the recollection of the feat served to suggest the story of the Bear of Bradwardine.  In the family of Scott of Thirlestane (not Thirlestane in the Forest, but the place of the same name in Roxburghshire) was long preserved a cup of the same kind, in the form of a jack-boot.  Each guest was obliged to empty this at his departure.  If the guest’s name was Scott, the necessity was doubly imperative.

When the landlord of an inn presented his guests with deoch an doruis, that is, the drink at the door, or the stirrup-cup, the draught was not charged in the reckoning.  On this point a learned bailie of the town of Forfar pronounced a very sound judgment.

A., an ale-wife in Forfar, had brewed her ‘peck of malt’ and set the liquor out of doors to cool; the cow of B., a neighbour of A., chanced to come by, and seeing the good beverage, was allured to taste it, and finally to drink it up.  When A. came to take in her liquor, she found her tub empty, and from the cow’s staggering and staring, so as to betray her intemperance, she easily divined the mode in which her ‘browst’ had disappeared.  To take vengeance on Crummie’s ribs with a stick was her first effort.  The roaring of the cow brought B., her master, who remonstrated with his angry neighbour, and received in reply a demand for the value of the ale which Crummie had drunk up.  B. refused payment, and was conveyed before C., the bailie, or sitting magistrate.  He heard the case patiently; and then demanded of the plaintiff A. whether the cow had sat down to her potation or taken it standing.  The plaintiff answered, she had not seen the deed committed, but she supposed the cow drank the ale while standing on her feet, adding, that had she been near she would have made her use them to some purpose.  The bailie, on this admission, solemnly adjudged the cow’s drink to be deoch an doruis, a stirrup-cup, for which no charge could be made without violating the ancient hospitality of Scotland.